Midwinter Ball: Sam Dastyari’s new clanger

Illustration: Rod Clement.

It’s becoming a Midwinter Ball tradition.

For the second year in a row, days before Canberra’s social night of the year, Sam Dastyari — Labor’s energetic senator — has made an arse of himself.

Labor Senator Sam Dastyari and wife Helen Barron. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas.

Last year it was a much pilloried time-travelling cameo on the ABC’s award-winning The Killing Season doco that caused the trouble. It was the one where Dastyari enthusiastically acted out his role in the Kevin Rudd-Julia Gillard leadership saga.

Dasher even brought his iPhone 6 along, if you remember — as he otherwise flawlessly acted out a scene that was supposed to be set in 2010, when he was NSW Labor secretary.

Airing days before the ball, it meant he was mercilessly teased by every politician and journalist in the capital, as he has said ­before.

It looked like this year Dast­yari was in the clear — ascendant even, as Labor’s push for a royal commission into the banks, of which Dastyari has been a vocal advocate, continued to cause heartburn to Malcolm Turnbull and one of the ball’s key sponsors, Westpac boss Brian Hartzer.

But then, the day before the ball, came the revelation that Dasher let a Chinese education company plug a $1670 gap in his travel bill.

Not the biggest sum of money in the world — but not a great look when you are leading a campaign on corporate greed.

GALLERY: View the Canberra midwinter ball

PM holds off Shorten

A last-minute flood of money saved Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull from minor humiliation yesterday afternoon.

Julie Bishop with her partner David Panton. Picture: Gary Ramage.

Despite slow bidding early, those with cash to splash for influence decided morning tea with Turnbull was worth more than a run and brekkie with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and his deputy, Tanya Plibersek.

By the time bidding ended in the Midwinter Ball charity auction at 5pm yesterday, the PM’s meet-and-greet was knocked down for $10,400, compared with $6600 for exposure to his political rivals.

Our highly competitive Foreign Minister Julie Bishop would have been pleased to be the highest fundraiser, but perhaps somewhat disappointed with her inability to break $50,000.

Her offer of a two-night extravaganza in LA, including dinner with a mystery Hollywood star, went for $41,500, while a meal with the Nats’ Fiona Nash was bid to $4150.

CEO women step up

Not everyone who was anyone was in Canberra’s Great Hall last night.

Back in Sydney it was a business who’s who at the Westin for the 31st annual Chief Executive Women dinner, with SingTel boss Chua Sock Koong jetting in from the tax haven to take the podium.

Qantas was a Midwinter sponsor but boss Alan Joyce (a member of the Male Champions Of Change ensemble) elected to stay in the Harbour City, while his chair Leigh Clifford was set to be flying the Qantas flag in Canberra.

Joyce made good use of his new Tom Cruise smile as he performed the night’s barrel duties.

Outgoing Reserve Bank boss Glenn Stevens was there, with only a fortnight until he is free to go full-time on the party circuit. Also along was new stock exchange chief Dominic Stevens, company director Sally Herman (who as Kambala school council president is caught up in a controversy over gay teachers), Sydney University chancellor Belinda Hutchinson, Catherine Brenner (who not long ago replaced Simon McKeon as AMP chair) and newish Woolies director Holly Kramer.

Our bankers — hated in Canberra but feted in corporate women’s groups — were out in force, and included ANZ chair David Gonski, National Australia Bank boss Andrew Thorburn and chair Ken Henry, Nicholas Moore’s potential successor at Macquarie Shemara Wikramanayake, along with NBN chair Ziggy Switkowski — who was well advised to stay away from Canberra’s Parliament House following AFP raids over leaked telco docos to senator Stephen Conroy.

Completing the picture was Australia’s most discussed lobbyist, Jennifer Westacott,(of the Business Council of Australia) and her superbly groomed predecessor, Katie Lahey.

Speaking of the BCA, wonder if their next president — who will replace Catherine Livingstone in November — was in the room, too?

Move to Firma ground

It’s all change for former ANZ international and institutional banking boss and one-time bank CEO Andrew Geczy, who in January became the first victim of new bank chief Shayne Elliott’s executive shake-out.

Andrew Geczy. Picture: Supplied.

Geczy spearheaded the bank’s push into Asia under old boss Mike Smith, and was — for a brief moment there — considered Smith’s possible successor as CEO.

Happily, after half a year of searching, Geczy has been reincarnated as the head of European private equity giant Terra Firma, for which he will relocate to London. The firm’s only asset in Australia is the former James Packer-owned agribusiness Consolidated Pastoral Company in the Top End.

Consequently, the new private equiteer and his jewellery designer wife Antje Geczy are looking to flog their Struan Street, Toorak mansion, which is just up the road from The Good Guys millionaire Andrew Muir’s $20 million pile.

The Geczys bought the home — which boasts six bedrooms, five bathrooms, a tennis court and elevated lap pool — only two years ago for $11.5m. They now want $14m for the spread and as of yesterday it looks like the glam couple have an offer they are considering.

Antje Geczy once worked for Chanel as an accessories designer and — best of all — as assistant to Karl Lagerfeld — a sort of Mike Smith figure in the fashion world.

Their relocation is well timed. In October, Terra Firma celebrates its 21st birthday in London with a big bash that would impress even a former ANZ executive from the opulent Smith era.

Meanwhile, Smith’s Toorak home remains unsold. The former ANZ boss put the five-bedroom, six-bathroom place on the market in mid-February, but has not had a buyer — or at least one that will clear Brian Wilson’s FIRB.

Timing everything

Clearly, Harvey Norman boss Katie Page never misses an opportunity.

Harvey Norman boss Katie Page. Picture: Richard Dobson.

At this year’s Magic Millions thoroughbred sales on the Gold Coast, executive chair Gerry Harvey’s better half managed to lock in the sale of 10 smartwatches from Chinese telco Huawei (at $1000 a pop).

Page, who is one of corporate Australia’s more powerful women, even marketed the product — sporting one of the Chinese telco’s timepieces on her wrist, which led to the interest from buyers.

On the fringes of the horse sales, the retailer took names and details of the watch’s admirers and then facilitated the 10 sales on her return to Sydney.

More proof — not that it was needed — that she is her billionaire husband’s best asset. No wonder the couple’s fortune has swollen to $1.99 billion and their retail network delivered such a good set of numbers yesterday.